His throat works as he swallows several times, his hand burning as if touched by angelic fire. He wants to take Kaworu in his arms. He does not. There is an ocean between them, an impossible stretch of water Midoriya struggles to find a way to cross as he breathes quickly through his nose as if readying for a sudden escape. He hears, as if through cotton, Paul leave the room.

He has no notion of how many moments it takes for him to follow, stepping backward through the door, then looking over his shoulder, unable to take his eyes off Kaworu. Losing that line of sight is a blade released to fall and cut part of himself away. He walks slowly down the hall with a new wound and stops when he finds it blocked. (Really it's not, but he would have to go around, close, and he wants to know why.)

"Yes," he says with the immediacy of sure (obvious) knowledge. His thick voice does not match Paul's fervor. Paul is looking back at him in a hallway. There is nowhere else for Midoriya to look except at the slim black-sheathed blade of a person. Yet somehow Midoriya has perfected the art of looking straight ahead at him without looking at him.

"You proved it on the ship."